"RHA" 2007 Obituary

RHAMES o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-08-08 published
Death of Canadian at actor's home a mystery
Coroner rules out dog bites and heart attack in investigation
of what happened to scriptwriter Jacob
ADAM/ADAMS
By Unnati GANDHI,
Page 3
The last time anyone saw Jacob
ADAM/ADAMS alive, he was playing with
his friend Ving
RHAMES's four large dogs.
The next morning, the Canadian scriptwriter was found dead on
the actor's front lawn in affluent West Los Angeles, dog bites
and blood all over his chest, legs and arms.
But what happened in those intervening hours has everyone from
police to Friends scratching their heads. An autopsy yesterday
found the 40-year-old did not die as a result of the bites, and
that he was healthy in every other way.
Police say Mr.
ADAM/ADAMS, who had been living at the Mission Impossible
co-star's home for the past two years and worked as his professional
stand-in, was seen outside the Brentwood, California., home at
about 8 p.m. last Thursday. Half an hour later, Friends tried
calling him but got no answer.
Whatever spurred one of the 90-kilogram mastiffs to give chase
had Mr. ADAM/ADAMS running so hard that police found his shoes more
than nine metres from where his body was discovered.
"He made it to the gate, he got the gate closed to keep the dogs
inside that grassy area, and he collapsed on the other side of
that gate, about three feet from it," said West Los Angeles Lieutenant
Ray Lombardo.
When police arrived, the dogs - one with blood on its right forepaw
the other so old it hardly had any teeth - were running around
freely on the lawn. Mr.
ADAM/ADAMS was pronounced dead at the scene.
Yesterday, the dogs were still in the custody of animal control.
Mr. RHAMES's wife told police yesterday that the dogs, which
the family has owned for about seven years, were very gentle.
"She said she has two young children and that the dogs had never
viciously turned on anybody," Lt. Lombardo said.
Most of the bites were superficial, the Los Angeles coroner's
office said yesterday. It was also determined that Mr.
ADAM/ADAMS
did not die of a heart attack and did not have any clogged arteries.
The body is now being sent in for toxicology tests.
"At this point, it's simply a mystery. We're ruling it an undetermined
death," Lt. Lombardo said.
He believes the dogs - "they're big dogs; they look like lions,"
he said - sensed something was wrong with Mr.
ADAM/ADAMS and were
trying to help him by pulling on him. There were no bites on
the head or neck.
Mr. ADAM/ADAMS, who is from the Toronto area, had met the Pulp Fiction
actor several years ago on the Canadian set for Kojak, a made-for-television
movie in which Mr.
RHAMES played a police detective. Mr.
ADAM/ADAMS
had written that film's script.
The two men got along very well in a short time and became good
Friends.
"He took a real liking to Jacob," Anne
DODDS, a long-time friend
of Mr. ADAM/ADAMS, said yesterday. Mr.
RHAMES then asked Mr.
ADAM/ADAMS
if he would like to work for him.
"He had apparently said to Jacob, 'When I'm here, I want you
to stand in for me, but when I'm not here, treat my home in Vancouver,
treat my home in Los Angeles, as your own home,'" Ms.
DODDS said
in an interview.
"This man, when he was a friend, he was a friend," Ms.
DODDS
said of Mr.
ADAM/ADAMS. "If you ever had a down time, he'd give you
that lift to make you feel better about yourself."
With that, Mr.
ADAM/ADAMS moved to Los Angeles two years ago, where
he lived in Mr.
RHAMES's estate with his wife and two young children.
Mr. ADAM/ADAMS is not married and recently got his green card.
The deal was that whenever Mr.
RHAMES was out of town - he's
currently in Europe - Mr.
ADAM/ADAMS would take care of the "odds
and ends" around the house, police said.